On the first trip we took to renew our Costa Rican tourist visas, we went to Panama.

It took us five hours from Turrialba, where my great-aunt lives, to drive in a taxi to get to the Costa Rica/Panama border. The scenery on the way there was beautiful! There were several deserted beaches, banana plantations and a few pineapple plantations, too.

When we got to the border, we got our exit stamps for Costa Rica and crossed the wood and steel bridge separating the two countries.

It took us a while to get our passports stamped and to fill out all of the forums to enter into Panama, because we have seven people in our family.  If you pay the officials a bribe though, you can get in to an air conditioned office while you get everything taken care of.

Costa Rican beach on the way to Panama

By the time we were done with all the paperwork, we were really hot, so we went to a small restaurant in a little mall nearby.  All the drinks we ordered were cold and cooled us off very quickly.

After a little while, we were ready to cross back into Costa Rica. We got our stamps out of Panama and continued on, crossing over the bridge again.  We had a few complications getting back into Costa Rica, but the border checkpoint was shaded, so we weren't hot.

When we got back in to Costa Rica, we had renewed our tourist visas and enjoyed a long peaceful ride back to Turrialba.

Joy Whitehead is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program.

Photo courtesy and copyright Joy Whitehead